I’m very familiar with Sartre’s Being and Nothingness. That book has virtually all Sartre had to say about his early philosophy and is considered one of the major works of existentialism. That said I’m hardly good at teaching, but I will try. James found some good definitions of existentialism. The one I like best is “1. the doctrine that man forms his essence in the course of the life resulting from his personal choices.” They are all written in “plain English” while existentialism must be written in a way that finds new meanings for average words. Therefore, they all can seem accurate and inaccurate at the same time.
Many authors including Sartre came to similar conclusions as those expressed in those definitions. A novelist can express those ideas as well through the story and if the ideas “move you” or agree with you, then why question them? While it’s true many existential philosophers were also novelists they all had a solid bases in philosophy for their views. The question is: How did they come to the conclusions that the definitions give?
Like I said there is no plain English way to explain existentialism without the risk of misinterpretation. I believe that existentialist ideas are something we learn over time through reading, reflection and discussions. Nonetheless, I’ll try to give a quick summary of the root idea of existentialism. Keep in mind it’s bound to sound ambiguous.
I like to think the best way to express the root idea of existentialism is with the phrase; being before essence. The significance of that is that philosophy often used to be thought of as the reverse, essence before being. Now to clarify I must offer some sort of definition for the way I’m using the terms “being” and “essence”. Being is the physical world; essence is what people give to it. Now the temporal difference between the two terms needs to be explained. First I’ll explain essence before being, then the reverse.
There is two ways to look at essence before being. The broad way is this: There was an unexplainable essence, and then the universe was created or formed. That essence defines why things are the way they are. The word good has a natural meaning, and it is good for all to do good.
The other way of looking at essence before being is from a completely different perspective, furthermore I don’t know if many people believe this but I included it because it is another way of viewing essence before being. A person is essence. That person creates being through thought. Whatever that person thinks reality is it is. Some might say that what I just described is existentialism, but as you will see it isn’t.
There is two ways to look at being before essence. The first way I describe sounds somewhat paradoxical, the second is what is really meant by existentialist. I only bring up this way because it may avoid some confusion when I describe the second. The first way is also broad: There was just the universe it was being, but it was undifferentiated being. Humans evolved and gave essence to being.
The second way of looking at being before essence starts from the individual’s perspective. Before the individual there was undifferentiated being. The individual gives it essence, they choose the essence they give it, or in other words they must choose the essence they give to it. The term facticity comes in to play here. Without facticity our world would be just like the second version of essence before being I described. We would be able to do anything. Facticity is our freedom’s limits. One may ask: How does the concept of undifferentiated being and facticity correspond? That question may be the most difficult and fundamental question of existentialism. Sartre explains it very well, perhaps later I’ll attempt to summarize Sartre’s explanation, but it won’t be easy.